Steeler Nation

Steelers fans line the Boulevard of the Allies in downtown Pittsburgh for the Super Bowl XLIII victory parade in February 2009.

Steelers Nation is the unofficial name of the fan base of the NFL'sPittsburgh Steelers, coined by NFL Films narrator John Facenda in "Blueprint for Victory," the team's 1975 highlights film. Steelers Country is often used for the Pittsburgh area where the fan base originates or for areas with a large Steelers fan base.

Much like the league itself in the early years, the Steelers had to compete with baseball and college football teams in the city, making the team third in the hierarchy to the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pitt Panthers. Despite the team's early struggles, it had a small but loyal fan base in the city due to the popularity of American football at all levels, dating back to the 1800s, when Pittsburgh hosted the first wholly professional football game in 1895.

The team's four Super Bowl victories in the 1970s coincided with a recession that struck the United States, and the city in particular, that would lead to the closure of several steel mills in the early 1980s. The team's success was credited with giving people in the city hope and leading to the increased fan base. Due to economic uncertainty in the area, many Steelers fans relocated to other areas but retained their identification with the Steelers as a reflection of their former hometown's steel industrial base.

During the lead up to Super Bowl XIII between the Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys, Phil Musick contrasted the Dallas and Pittsburgh fans by saying that "Dallas is superfan Whistling Ray and a hat that sprays the unsuspecting with water; Pittsburgh is a guy in a gorilla suit who'll stove five of your ribs if you laugh at him."[2]

Jack Lambert said of Steeler Nation during his Hall of Fame induction speech: "How lucky I was to have played for the Pittsburgh Steelers fans. A proud, hard-working people, who loves their football, and their players."[3]

Since the 1970s, the Steelers have enjoyed a large fan base and have eclipsed the Pittsburgh Pirates as the most popular sports team in Pittsburgh. While the team's success gained it a large fan base nationally, many consider the collapse of the city's steel industry to have been a cause for the strong fan base in other cities, demonstrated when teams whose home turnout would otherwise require a local blackout on television end up selling out when hosting the Steelers. An instance of the team's large fan base was at Super Bowl XL, where an ESPN.com columnist suggested that Steelers fans outnumbered Seattle Seahawks fans more than 25 to 1.[16]

In November 2007, a study by Turnkey Sports found that the Steelers brand was the strongest in its local market of any team in the NHL, NBA, MLB or NFL.[17][18]

In November 2007 NFL Films president and co-founder Steve Sabol speaking at the team's 75th anniversary gala at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center stated: "The Steelers don't need a mascot. Their fans are their mascot...There were Gerela's Gorillas, Franco's Italian Army, Lambert's Lunatics, people dressed up like a bumble bee. You don't need a mascot when you have fans like that. When we'd go to Pittsburgh to do the game for NFL Films we never brought enough cameras."[24]

Human resources recruiters from the natural gas industry, particularly those in the Marcellus Shale where Pittsburgh is located, began targeting Steeler bars nationwide for possible employees.[25]

Attempts at quantifying the loyalty of Steeler Nation relative to other NFL fan bases have shown mixed results.

A 2006 study by the American City Business Journals placed the team's fans 21st out of 32 teams in the league,[26] behind all three of its division rivals in the AFC North. The study found that although the team had been selling out games for years, some fans were not actually attending the games, and Pittsburgh's weekly turnout percentage for home games was 16th in the league.[27] That ranking was down seven slots from the publication's survey conducted in 1997, which ranked Steelers Nation 14th out of 30 teams, partly due to fans leaving nearly 10 percent of the seats in the stadium empty.[28]

On the other hand, a 2008 study from Forbes.com ranked Steelers fans 8th overall, citing amongst other things a long season-ticket waiting list.[29] A 2008 article for ESPN.com ranked Steelers fans as the best in the NFL, citing their "unbelievable" sellout streak of 299 consecutive games.[30][31]

Anti–Steeler Nation sentiment has grown strong enough that in some cases, front offices for other teams have taken steps to keep Pittsburgh fans out of games in their cities.[32] Instead of being permitted to buy tickets to a Chargers-Steelers game in San Diego, for instance, they were required to pay for tickets to two other games, as well.[33] In other cases, teams refused to sell tickets to fans calling from Pittsburgh's 412 area code, and they encouraged fans who were selling their own tickets to do the same.[32] Steelers President Art Rooney II complained to the NFL about the situation, but his grievance was not acted upon.[32]